The Health Benefits of Apples

No doubt you already know many of the health benefits of apples. After all, we all know the expression "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", but is there any truth in it?

Well, eating apples has been linked to reduced risk of heart disease,
cancer, asthma and type 2 diabetes. How is that possible? What makes
apples so special?

Apple Nutrition Facts

A 100 g. serving of apple is one small apple and provides:

52 calories

0.3 g. of proteins

0.2 g. of fat

12.8 g. of carbohydrate, with 10.4 g. of natural sugars

2.4 g. of fiber

Apples are also an excellent source of vitamin C, pectin and other fibers and a good source of potassium.

Most of the apple's important nutrients are contained in its skin
and raw apples are higher in many nutrients and phytochemical as well,
such as ellagic acid and flavonoids (especially quercitin). So to enjoy
the health benefits of apples you should eat them raw and with their
skin on.

Filled with Antioxidants

The antioxidants in apples are mainly a type of phytochemicals called phenolics, which neutralize free radicals before they have a chance to harm your DNA and other important components within your body.

You might think that the health benefits of apples are mainly due
to their high vitamin C content which provides the main antioxidant
protection.

Apparently not. According to research conducted by scientists at
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Seoul University in South
Korea, phenolics, rather than vitamin C in the fruit, may provide the
bulk of apples' antioxidant power.

Apples came second after
cranberries and before red grape, strawberry, pineapple, banana, peach,
lemon, orange, pear and grapefruit (although these fruits are all rich
with other very important phytochemicals).

One particular study also measured the ability of extracts of
these fruits to inhibit liver-cancer cells in the lab. Apples came in
third place, behind cranberries and lemons.

Problem is, you can't just grab a handful of cranberries or a
lemon and eat them, can you? But nothing can beat the tastiness,
easy preparation and versatility of an apple!

Health Benefits of Appleson Heart Disease

The health benefits of apples extend also to your heart. In fact, a study that followed almost 40,000 women over 7 years,
associated apples with a 13 to 22% lower risk of cardiovascular
disease.

A study carried out in Finland, found that intake of flavonoids, a type of phenolic found in apples, as well as onions and tea, was inversely associated with death of heart disease in women.

Data gathered from the same group of people also found that those
who ate the most apples had a lower risk of a type of stroke than
people who ate the fewest apples.

Another study, involving more than 30,000 older Iowa women, found that consuming catechin and epicatechin - both flavonoids found in apples - was associated with a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease.

Unfortunately, most people favour the flesh, but much of the
apple's healing power resides in the skin, which contains large amounts
of an antioxidant compound called quercetin (about 4
milligrams). Like vitamin C and beta-carotene, quercetin can help
prevent harmful oxygen molecules from damaging individual cells.

Even in the healing world of antioxidants, quercetin is thought to be exceptional.

Another Finnish study found that the people who ate the most quercetin had a 20% lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease than
those who ate the least.

Another study was conducted by Dr. R. Sablé-Amplis at the
University of Paul Sabatier, Institute of Physiology, in Toulose,
France specifically to discover the health benefits of apples.

He asked a group of thirty middle-aged healthy men and women not
to change their diet one bit - except for one thing: Eat two or three
apples every day for one month, one at about 10 A.M., another at 4
P.M.

By the end of the month, the apples had pushed down the blood
cholesterol of twenty-four - or 80% - of the group. In half of them the
drop was more than 10%. One person's cholesterol dived by 30%. Plus, the
apples manipulated the blood so that good HDL cholesterol went up and
the destructive LDL cholesterol went down.

They suspect that pectin, the soluble-type fiber
contained in apples, is what caused the reduction, but they can't be
sure. Pectin alone doesn't explain the health benefits of apples, for
the whole apple itself is a much more powerful cholesterol depressor
than all the pectin squeezed out of an apple.